Niamey: Fifteen civilians were killed in an attack by Boko Haram militants on a border village in southeastern Niger, state television reported late Friday.
The attack took place on Thursday night in a village on the banks of the Komadougou Yobe river which runs along a small section of the border between Niger and Nigeria, Tele Sahel said.
The station said 15 people had been killed and another four wounded in an attack carried out by around a dozen militants armed with guns who had reached the village on foot.
One of the victims was the village chief, the Afani private radio station reported.
The attack followed two months of calm in the area, and took place as Muslims marked Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar.
"We found a dreadful scene, around 15 people had been executed, four of whom were from Nigeria," Hassan Ardo, an official from the Diffa governorate told the channel.
The attackers had also torched 22 houses, a car and a mill, he said.
Since February, the southern Diffa region has suffered several deadly Boko Haram raids staged from neighbouring Lake Chad.
Diffa lies on the border with northeast Nigeria, where the Islamists have waged a bloody uprising since 2009, leaving at least 15,000 dead and left more than two million others homeless.
